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Thursday, May 8, 2014

Mobile Development & Senior Capstone Plans

While my mind is mostly occupied with thoughts of how much development time I'll have this summer I also find myself organizing how my next two school game projects will be done. See my upcoming plans and obstacles below the break.

For my mobile class I'm currently going with the survival platformer idea but it's totally dependent on if I'm allowed to use Unity. The professor who created the class said it is meant to teach us the differences between development tools so students have to look into different ones and compare their usefulness. I already went through this with Fish Feaster on my own Freshman year.

I tried Corona, Tiled, Cocos2d, Cocos2dX, Game Maker, Utility App software, and I looked at Game Salad. I decided on Cocos2d because it was the closest to the SDL and Allegro libraries I was familiar with. I now Use Unity because it doeseverythingI need it to easily and quickly. I wish I could skip the class just on the basis that I've got the whole mobile development thing down. It's mobile marketing that needs some practice.Unfortunately this is a high level class meaning no one can test out of it.

Honestly, all the game's I've released so far scream how comfortable I've gotten with mobile development. It's a shame I can't just turn one in and take the 3 credits.

If I'm forced to use something that's not Unity (meaning simple things like sprite/object manipulation will become a challenge) then I'll just have to make some simple sort of game with sprites that don't animate. A puzzle game or something. It might also be on just one platform since all my multi-platform games are Unity made. It's good we're allowed to upload our games to the appstore though.

So anyway, survival platformer featuring a cat that shoots lasers and explores a big room with stuff that wants you dead. Something simple I can do alongside my RPG projects. That's what I want t do if I can convince my teacher to allow it.

As for my capstone, I am going to make it the Zelda style dragon action RPG I've been wanting to do since I started programming. It won't be anything like the final game, but it will have a beginning, middle, and end. Made in a way that will allow me to continue adding to it after graduation.

I just want basic mechanics working and I want to organize a pipeline for rapid development. I recently got a 6-foot HDMI cable (thanks to my girlfriend's very kind grandmother) and now I can use a TV as a second monitor. If I can get all the basic code work done and create nearly all the assets I'll need I can spend time (at most a year) after graduation on making the game as well-crafted as possible in order to live of to the promise of making the best mobile action RPG the app store has ever seen.

Exciting times are ahead. I couldn't be any happier that my hardest semester ever is nearly behind me.